There is the story of an international survey. The only question raised was ‘kindly pass your honest opinion on resolving the food shortage issues in the outer world.’
Those in Africa did not understand what they meant by the word ‘food’; people of Eastern Europe did not understand the meaning of the word ‘honest’; in Western Europe people did not know what food shortage was. When it came to China, it was ‘sharing opinions’ that they didn’t know. Those in the Middle East didn’t know the meaning of the word solution; those in South Africa didn’t know ‘kindly’ and the USA did not know what ‘outer world’ is.
There are differences between countries and continents. This story points towards the fact that all these differences are to be settled. Otherwise, it is wrong to say that we are growing into a free and peaceful global village. But the fact is that people and countries are interested only in maintaining their individual interests.
Once there lived a blind man in a village. One day a beggar named Ramdas went to him. The blind man asked him, “Who are you brother?” “I’m Ramdas the beggar!” replied the beggar. The blind man came close to him and touched on his arms. Again, Ramdas came the next day. This time the blind man touched him and asked, “Aren’t you Ramdas?” This continued for many days. Every time the blind man would identify Ramdas.
One day, the blind man asked Ramdas, “Why are you brother, coming to me every day? Don’t you know that I have nothing to give you?” “Oh! everybody gives me alms but you only touch me with love and call me, brother.”
What the entire world badly needs are compassionate people like this blind man. Wherever they are, they look bright like the sun spreading light around. But how more beautiful would the sky be with many thousands of glittering stars than the day, bright with just one sun? Whenever we touch another calling him ‘brother’, we also might become another star, thus adding to the beauty of the universe.
There is the story of a hotel and a poor man. At noon, the hotel gets crowded and a middle-aged man used to slip in regularly. He sat in the front portion, took food and sneaked out, believing that nobody was watching. But one of the regular customers was watching this. At last, he decided to report the matter at the counter. The manager said that they also have been seeing this.
The next day also the same thing happened. As the restaurant hall got crowded, the man came in, ate food and left, as usual. The customer who had reported this asked the manager, why he didn’t respond. He replied, “I feel that the crowd in this hotel is because of this poor man’s prayer. The floor was found busy from the day he began coming in.”
